It's not that Shakespeare's cries lacked footwear, it's just that they were profitless, useless and brought no advantage.

Anyway, the comparative of boot the adjective was bettra (more advantageous) and the superlative was betst (most advantageous/useful etc). Do you see where this is going?

Meanwhile, there was the Old English word gōd (which had nothing to do with the word god). It meant... well it meant good. And now we spell it good. It meant virtuous or valid or desirable. Meanwhile, there was another Old English word: will. It meant to desire or want. When things turned out as you had willed them, they turned out well.So now English has a thoroughly weird looking adjective: good, better, best; with the adverb well. We call it irregular, but in a way it's not. It's just three different words that all meant roughly the same thing. Some day, a thousand years from now it may be cool, finer, ok. And people may say to themselves 'That's strange. I wonder how it goed from one to the other."

In other news, I shall be giving a talk in Abingdon tomorrow. More information here. If you're around, do come along. And, did I mention that The Elements of Eloquence will be in the shops on Thursday?

According to www.etymonline.com the word "booty," as in a pirate's ill gotten gains, is related to "boot," but it appears to be some sort of multilingual pun involving Old French "butin" and Middle German "bute," is there a name for this?

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The Horologicon is out in America

The Horologicon is a book of the strangest and most beautiful words in the English language arranged by the hour of the day when you will really need them. Words for breakfast, for commuting, for working, for dining, for drinking and for getting lost on the way home. It runs from uhtceare (sadness before dawn) to curtain lecture (a telling off given by your spouse in bed). It's out all over the world and you can buy it from these lovely people: